Chanting is the key to the spiritual world. The Maha mantra is the stairway to the celestial spheres, and even beyond this material atmosphere. However offenses against the holy name can affect ones devotional service in such a manner that it also becomes an offense against the spiritual master. Our only recourse to get the full benefit of chanting the Maha mantra and at the same time assuage any offenses committed is to intensely seek the shelter of Nitai-Gauranga and Pancatattva.

I have often come across statements such as chanting is like "brainwashing" and it's something done parrot wise. These statements are pure hogwash! If any washing is done, chanting washes your soul, your heart and your mind, which it surely does. In reply to the parrot wise comment we can liken the repetitious enunciation of the Maha mantra to the manner in which the boy in the movie karate kid was shown the wax on wax off method to polish the bonnet of the car. Likewise continuously and in a sequential way to go on calling out to Krishna as devotees do when chanting they are wiping the dirt from the mirror of the mind just as the youngster does in the movie.

You only gain in Krishna consciousness. I take the liberty of quoting Srila Prabhupada from his book, Path of Perfection, "Simply don't lose sight of Krishna. That is the perfection of life. We can forget everything else, but we should never forget Krishna."

In the same book namely Path of Perfection, Srila Prabhupada quotes Rupa Goswami, as follows "a sober person who can tolerate the urge to speak, the mind's demands, the actions of anger, and, the urges of the tongue, belly, and genitals is qualified to make disciples all over the world."

In conclusion I would like to leave you with my favorite verse from the Bhagavad Gita As It is by Srila Prabhupada, "For the soul there is neither birth nor death. Nor having once been, does He ever cease to be. He is unborn, undying, eternal and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain." This is from chapter two verse twenty.